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We are pleased to announce the launch of three exciting new courses, developed by Piran Consulting and run in conjunction with the Aventis Centre for Organizational Psychology, part of the Aventis School of Management. Aventis offers an unsurpassed experience in accelerated learning, which fosters both intellectual growth and development to meet current and future challenges of businesses around the world.

The new courses will be run for the first time in as public programmes in May and June, as 2 day workshops designed to facilitate the development of ideas and practical solutions for recruiters and talent acquisition specialists. There is limited coverage for training courses of this nature in Singapore, and so we will provide solutions, information, and ideas to improve knowledge, skills and workplace performance. The courses are:

These courses can also be run as in house programmes for a range of organisations, including corporates, small and medium sized enterprises, specialist recruitment consultancies and agencies, and government bodies. We are happy to discuss your organisational or individual needs, and you can contact us with any specific queries.

This is a very exciting project and we look forward to seeing you on one of our courses very soon!

Without getting the necessary preparation done on this crucial aspect of presenting, you may end up looking and feeling a little lost come the time to stand in front of your audience! Even some of the best and brightest struggle on this front, not using the previous points discussed to build strong substance into their presentations, which may end up being solely full of style. Many people are perfectly capable speakers and presenters, but is this enough for your audience? Are they happy to settle for capable, or are they looking for excellent? In this day and age, it is more often than not the latter. Often your topic will be based on specialist knowledge or expertise, and although this seems like an easy win in the sense that you’re comfortable with the subject matter, you may end up finding that your knowledge is so superior to your audiences that you are required to ‘tone it down’ a little. Coming to a presentation from the angle of knowledge or subject matter expert is a great bonus; you already have a strong level of pre-existing knowledge, allowing you to give a fluent talk, adding in or removing elements as you see fit. This allows a more natural presentation, moving with less effort from section to section, and often providing natural energy as this is an area with which you have a specific interest or knowledge base. This also provides an additional bonus that is often omitted when planning a presentation or speaking session, that being the ability to provide coherent, useful answers to audience questions. It is not expected (mostly, with the odd exception) that a presenter should know the answer to everything an audience may ask, but it certainly helps give an air of direction and authority when you are able to fluently provide answers to those pressing questions thrown at you by the attendees. Having preexisting knowledge is a great boon in this regards, and can round out a session with a much more positive atmosphere. It is not always the case that we will be endowed with a wide variety of knowledge on the given subject before we present, and this requires additional research and effort, which if course necessitates time to be added. Planning is crucial, and the time needed on this front will vary depending on the level of work required to be undertaken. Do not fall into the age old student trap of cramming everything into the last hours before you take to the stage! This is obvious to the audience, does not provide the necessary detail they will be looking for and leaves people feeling short changed, something which happens to us all and never ceases to frustrate. A particular challenge may arise when the audience has a wide range of existing knowledge of the topic, with some individuals comfortable with the level you are presenting and others who feel they are in at the deep end. This may need an element of readjustment, but it is worth remembering that it is nigh impossible to be able to cover every element every audience member may be looking for. Having a poor grasp of the content and context of what you are presenting will almost certainly ensure your audience leaves without gaining much in the way of useful information. It is expected of you that you would do the requisite planning to provide a useful session, with information and examples, case studies and scenarios, and the ability to answer some of the more typical questions for the topic. It may be the case that you need to simplify your topic for the audience at hand, or it may be necessary or pertinent to focus the session on a smaller number of key areas instead of trying to overreach and end up under delivering. This is the sixth and final post in a weekly series looking at some ideas around presenting and preparation. All thoughts are the personal views of the author. Follow me on Twitter @s_gibbins

Bearing in mind some of the cultural elements discussed in my previous post, the question of where your presentation or session will take place can easily be transformed from a simple ‘How do I get there?’ to a whole new dimension of complexity. The basic elements of location tend to centre on the concept of how to travel to the venue; and this is often a good starting point. It is worth noting, however, that there are more issues at hand than purely the notion of where your presentation will be. Where you will present will often be influenced by who you are presenting to. For conferences, events, and seminars, you may need to travel, either domestically or internationally, and this may force you to consider the types of people present in your audience. Will they all be able to easily understand the language you are using? If you are in a country where your dominant language is not readily spoken, you may need to consider the choice of wording, or even the potential of translation services. You will also, as previously discussed, need to consider cultural sensitivities. There may be topics that are best avoided depending on where you present. As an example, in some countries religious or political examples and case studies may be best avoided. There are similar issues at hand even in a domestic environment. Depending on which location you are in, you may be dealing with a wide array of cultural backgrounds, religious grouping, races and genders, and so will need to consider this in relation to your topic areas, choice of language and examples used. Age can play a critical factor here; the younger your audience, the more you may need to consider altering or amending the type of presentation you give. This is particularly true for children; the difference between 12 and 16 years old is relatively huge compared to the difference between 32 and 36 years old! As an individual, the way I choose to present is influenced hugely, particularly at school age level, by the cultural backgrounds, ages and genders of my audience, which are all linked to the location of the session. It is also worth considering that, on most occasions, presenting in an educational context is much more draining, both physically and mentally, than presenting in a corporate environment. Travel arrangements and cost must be carefully considered, but the logistics on this front are often relatively simple to manage and prepare for, barring unforeseen circumstances and extraordinary events. You may wish to carefully consider politically sensitive locations with regards to travel, for example anywhere experiencing a form of civil strife, although in nearly all situation you will only be asked to go to safe environments. Ultimately, location should be a more straightforward area of thought and consideration than other elements, although it does still require careful planning. It can have a major influence on the format, style and delivery of your presentation, as you will need to factor in demographics, political, cultural and racial sensitivities, and age and gender of the audience in that location, as well as the likely, or assumed, level of pre-existing knowledge on the specialist topic for the audience in the selected geography. This is the fifth post in a weekly series looking at some ideas around presenting and preparation. All thoughts are the personal views of the author. Follow me on Twitter @s_gibbins

It seems so obvious, doesn't it? The question of when will I be delivering my presentation, at face value, has a very simple answer. Often you will be given an exact date and time (or close with some scheduling amendments), or at least a good gauge in terms of likely date. So is there really much more to consider when preparing your presentation? I would argue that this does indeed deserve a large dose of planning, and not necessarily because of anything you can control. Shortly after I moved to Asia I attended an evening presentation when something happened which has stuck with me ever since. The session was due to start at 6.30pm, and to last for around two hours, including questions. Around 45 minutes into the presentation, large sections of the audience began to rise and to head for the exits. This wasn't a mass protest, and those people seemed genuinely engaged prior to their leaving. So why, suddenly, was the best part of half the audience heading for the doors? These individuals were leaving so they could break their fast as part of their Ramadan religious period. So perhaps a two hour evening presentation taking those individuals away from their family commitments and their important breaking of the fast, was not the best planning! This was a timing error on behalf of the organisers, and demonstrates an important point that when is not only for you, but also for the audience. Presenting during any sort of religious, national, cultural or other festival or holiday period, or even during an ongoing crisis or tragedy, can pose serious challenges. In general these are best avoided but this is not always practicable. If you do end up in the position of delivering a session during a time like this, it is always a good idea to politely acknowledge the event(s), and always bear in mind others in the room may have something else on their mind. You may also try to include elements of the event in your presentation, if it is something that could be done with ease and without causing offence. Everyone has been in the position of having to attend a session at the end of a long week, say a Friday afternoon after five days on the grind. The audience at this session may behave completely differently to those on a Tuesday morning feeling fresh and engaged. They may be in casual attire and so have a more laid back mindset. They may be ready to head home and welcome the weekend and mentally not really be in attendance. There is every chance a particularly tired individual may even spend some time inspecting the inside of their eyelids, as happens to all of us from time to time! If you are presenting to children in the afternoon who have been at school since 7am, do not expect them to be bundles of energy! Accept that some will be a little grizzly and looking forward to heading off, so try to make the session fun and lively to engage all of them, but be mindful of the audience needs as well as your own. From the individual planning perspective, ‘when’ can be a trifling proposition at times. Sessions which begin very early or end very late can cause issues with regards to travel, ensuring you can physically be in attendance at the right time. You may need to plan your route, look at options for any members of the household you may leave who need care, or speak to someone to assist with dropping the kids off at school. The timing may conflict with another engagement or personal appointment you have, or your normal schedule. If you are heading to a heavy traffic area you may need to give extra room for hold-ups, or for security screening at some point along your journey. And of course, there is also the additional time needed when you get there in case of any unexpected hiccups, often caused by the wonderful technology we all love to utilize not working for some reason!This is the fourth post in a weekly series looking at some ideas around presenting and preparation. All thoughts are the personal views of the author. Follow me on Twitter @s_gibbins

This is one area which is often sadly overlooked when it comes to delivering a presentation, or at least given the proper thought it requires. Far too regularly it seems that individuals are presenting purely for their own self benefit, to make some money, or to advance their own ego or personal agenda. Whilst these may also be additional side benefits of conducting a talk or presentation, these should be secondary to the real reason you are where you are; to provide benefit to your audience. The reason you may be giving a talk might vary from doing it professionally on a wide range of subjects, to presenting to colleagues on a given topic, or being asked to present due to expertise in a certain field. The different reason will frame the presentation differently, as the type of information you are presenting and the reason for the audience being there will also be mixed. For many people, they will have been asked to deliver a presentation based on their knowledge of a given area, and so will already have a base of information from which to begin their preparation and mould their talk. Even in this scenario, people can find it challenging to prepare the presentation without tilting it towards their own goals or objectives. It is essential to think about the audience and why they would be there, not just why you are there. The levels of pre-existing knowledge will likely vary to a greater or lesser extent, and so this has to be factored in to the preparation, allowing time to think of information which may be of use for those with a relatively low base of knowledge in the subject area. This does not mean you have to dumb down your presentation, but it has to be receivable in a useful format for the audience. It is also worth considering why the organiser is holding a talk or presentation. Is this part of a wide ranging event or series of events and you are one part? Is this a one off specialist session? Is this designed for training and are there are tangible goals and objectives the audience has to be able to achieve upon completion? If this is the latter, you will need to prepare the presentation so that the audience can have useful knowledge and information which they can use further down the line. Here the ‘Who’ factor is critical, as well as the ‘What’ and ‘Why’. When approached about delivering a presentation you may also find it useful to ask yourself why, in the sense of why would or should I deliver this talk? This is not from an arrogant perspective but from the viewpoint of why have I been asked and what I can do that will be of benefit for the audience. All too often people are eager to jump in feet first and give presentations on topics, regardless of their own understanding and ability to be useful, because of the ego trip associated with it. It is crucial to consider why you have been asked in the first place, why you may bring something to the group that others cannot and why this would be better than somebody else delivering a talk on the same topic.This is the third post in a weekly series looking at some ideas around presenting and preparation. All thoughts are the personal views of the author. Follow me on Twitter @s_gibbins

In any presentation, knowledge of the intended audience can serve a beneficial purpose. It is not always easy to gain information on the audience, sometimes beyond even the most basic details, and not all presenters find this information particularly useful or beneficial. However even those most fundamental aspects can provide useful help when preparing for the big event. The type and level of preparation will vary considerably when the type of audience is taken into account. Giving a talk to a senior management grouping of English speaking executives will, for me, be very different to preparing a public speaking session for young schoolchildren who speak English as a second language. It is important to consider the choice of words and phrases, to ensure these are easily understood by the audience, and presented in a way that leaves them with the benefit they are seeking. Age plays a factor here as experience will vary considerably from the schoolchildren to the executives. One group will likely have had far greater exposure in their lives to presentations as an audience member and presenting themselves, whilst one may be only at the starting point of their journey. Levels of attention and interaction will also be highly varied, in the sense that some groups will be very engaged due to their inherent desire to be at your talk. Some groups, on the other hand, may be at the talk because they are made to be there, and will show far fewer signs of interest or engagement. It can feel like you are fighting a losing battle, but it is important in these instances to asses beforehand which group you will be talking to and to tailor your presentation accordingly. Being based in a multicultural society it is crucially important to consider the different backgrounds of my potential audience. In most scenarios I expect to be talking to varied groups from an array of countries, religious groupings, cultural backgrounds and gender. Many hot button issues that make great case studies are ones which are actively avoided because of sensitivity of one form or another. Of course, this doesn’t mean you skirt all around al potentially difficult situations! It is essential that these are afforded the care they deserve and are dealt with in an appropriate manner, trying to use these as good talking points without necessarily inferring your opinion of them. Every presenter has an idea of how much information they deem useful before giving a talk. Some want to know a huge volume of information whilst others feel comfortable with the bare minimum. This really is a personal preference and will be influenced by your style as a presenter, the type of presentation you are giving and your experience in that area. If you feel you are going in to a presentation with a limited set of information but are not able to get more, you may want to consider adding extra information, details, case studies or discussion points which will afford you the ability to branch out as you present. You may then have a chance to avoid an issue you see will cause offence by including another, still giving the group the same outcomes. This all links back to your preparation, making sure you have a wide range of material and resources to refer to in order to do the best job you can.This is the second post in a weekly series looking at some ideas around presenting and preparation. All thoughts are the personal views of the author. Follow me on Twitter @s_gibbins

There is, in the opinion of this author, no right or wrong way to conduct a presentation. Of course, nearly everybody has their favourite public speaker or speakers, those they look to as having done, once or on multiple occasions, the ‘best job’ at delivering a presentation. Whether these are short talks, lectures, addresses to thousands live on public media, or simply standing in front of your class or colleagues delivering your sentiments, everybody has a preferred style in the way they would present, and also in the way like to receive their content. There is no problem with this, and this idea extends across many different facets of life, but a dangerous concept has been created in which every presenter is compared to the current ‘trend’ in public, or not so public presentations; after all, nothing remains private very long these days. Whilst it is always useful to conduct a compare and contrast exercise to see how you stack up against other notable presenters, it may also be a fool’s errand to try and spend your time imitating these individuals. Whenever you please one section of your audience, you may alienate another, although neither of these outcomes can be guaranteed! A crucial idea in my way of thinking with regards to presentations centers on the audience. Too many presenters take to the stage trying to build their own ego and fan the flames of self importance. The real reason you should be standing in front of whoever has deemed their time worthy is, of course, your audience. Far too much time these days is centered on how individuals can make their presentations ‘better’, in whatever way is best (or often, to the detriment of everybody, the easiest), and not nearly enough importance is attached to the idea that you are trying to impart wisdom, ideas, guidance, advice, or maybe even comfort, to the audience who are sat patiently listening to you. And so begins a journey, with the aim of looking at how and why we present and what we are aiming to achieve, not with the objective of benefitting ourselves as individuals and leaving marks on our backs from the heavy patting, but to see how we can benefit the audience, providing them with key information they can take away and digest in readiness to apply to their own individual circumstance. This is not an easy goal to fulfill (we can’t please all of the people all of the time!), but it is certainly one worthy of striving towards. The idea of this series is to impart set of viewpoints on preparing for a presentation, with one eye fixed firmly on providing your audience with essential ideas that are usable. This is not just an idea of the way you or I may do it, but an analysis of five key components that should be at the forefront of every presenters preparation for a speaking engagement; who, why, when, where, and what. On the surface these are simple concepts that almost everybody will be familiar with, but I hope to provide some additional thinking on how these might be used to better prepare you to benefit your audience, and how these critical components can link together to make your best presentation. Remember, it doesn't have to be ‘the best’ presentation anybody has ever seen; but the audience expect you to adequately prepare so that you can give your best presentation to and for them, and not the best presentation for yourself. This is the first post in a weekly series looking at some ideas around presenting and preparation. All thoughts are the personal views of the author. Follow me on Twitter @s_gibbins

Preparation is key, not just for presentations, training events, interviews or public speaking, but in all walks of life. The planning and preparation you put in prior to your engagement helps your overall execution, and can be the difference between something good, and something great. A question I was recently asked whilst on a training assignment led to a lively and interesting discussion regarding how much planning and preparation is the ‘right’ amount. Of course, finding anything close to resembling the ‘right’ amount, is, generally speaking, an impossible task. It is essential to take into account the key variables which will affect the preparation you should do, and tie this in to the preparation you are realistically able to achieve to give it your best shot. If you are carrying out a short presentation to a small, well defined audience who you are already familiar with, and have months to prepare, your planning may be relatively straightforward. You may already have the basis of your presentation, and be able to conduct thorough research to fill in the pertinent points which will sufficiently engage your audience and provide them with the value they are seeking. It is important to plan the outline and structure of your presentation, in effect putting together a storyboard, which you will then use to fill out the key points you will need to highlight. Taking the initial idea of a storyboard and building this out, you will begin to develop an idea of the framework of your presentation and how the topic ideas, even ones that may initially seem disparate, will flow smoothly. A poorly thought through and weakly structured presentation will be evident to your audience, and may leave them feeling somewhat underwhelmed. A presentation which moves with clear progression and includes a number of interesting and thought provoking ideas, well knitted together, will be far better received and provide a much better sense of purpose for your audience, not to mention a far better feeling of satisfaction for yourself! These principles rely on time and knowledge being present in abundance to do a good job. The tables may, however, be turned on you. As has happened to me in the past, being asked to conduct a lengthy and detailed presentation at short notice can be stressful and nerve inducing. This does not mean that the presenter isn’t competent in his or her area of delivery, but trying to put together a meaningful discussion which delivers value for your participants is not always easy if the presenter is given demanding deadlines. Add to this that many presenters will be doing so on the side of their ‘normal’ jobs, and you have a recipe for frantic, and often inadequate, preparation. One thing you can do as a presenter is to ensure, as much as is practicable, you present on a topic with which you feel comfortable and have some pre-existing knowledge. If you are time pressured or have a heavy workload, try to avoid agreeing to speak on a topic with which you are unfamiliar. If you do end up in this position, try and leverage outside sources for assistance; friends, family, work colleagues and other industry practitioners can be invaluable sources of help and guidance , not only for your preparation but also to review and check work prior to delivery. So how much preparation is ‘enough’? As a general rule it is good practice to have the bulk of your presentation content, as well as your logistics and any assisting visuals, prepared and ready at least a week before you actually deliver it. This gives time for fine tuning (not cramming!), but also allows you to practice the presentation. Going through it on your own in a room, or in front of family or friends, allows you to get an idea of what is working well, what doesn’t come off quite so nicely, and what you might like to change or amend. There is also another crucial facet which will be aided considerably by a few practice sessions; timekeeping. By running through your presentation in ‘live’ mode, you will get a feel for how long it takes. This allows you to trim it down if necessary, or if a little short, to fill out any necessary sections with relevant content. Always try and remember to leave some time, where appropriate, for some questions and answers at the end of the session. The more engagement you can provide for your audience, invariably, the better! This means it is not always necessary to spend weeks or months planning in advance. This may be music to the ears of some individuals, but also it is not an excuse to do little or no preparation at all! You don’t want to finish your session with lots of time to spare, no audience questions, and being stuck in front of a room of glaring eyes with nothing to say. It is essential to plan according to the situation, appropriately for the topic and the audience, and relative to your particular ability and knowledge base as a presenter. It is not necessary to deliver the best presentation ever witnessed by man; but it is expected that you will deliver the best presentation you are capable of, to the highest standard possible.